What Is a SSL Certificate, and Why You Need One for your Vtiger CRM

As a business owner, you’ve probably heard the words “SSL certificate” getting thrown around a lot. Especially, since Google Chrome has decided to identify all the websites that do not use a valid certificated as “Non-Secure.”

SSL Certificates are small data files that digitally bind a cryptographic key to an organization’s details. When installed on a web server, it activates the padlock and the https protocol and allows secure connections from a web server to a browser.

When your server uses an SLL, the connection between your browser and your server is secure; this means that all web traffic between the web server and the web browser will be secure.

By using an SSL certificate. Your information is unreadable to anyone who attempts to steal it. The only people able to decipher it are the intended recipients at the other end of the connection.

With an SSL certificate, you can use your CRM being secure that no one that has got access to the network, or if you are on a public network can read the information between your browser and the server.

How Does an SSL Certificate Work?

SSL operates between a visitor’s browser and your application. It’s an industry-standard mechanism that ensures the encryption of data being passed backward and forwards so that no unauthorized person can spy on the information and hack it. It also prevents cyber criminals from diverting visitor traffic to their own site using their own encryption and gaining access to your data that way. All the leading web browsers have SSL capability built web browsers have SSL capability built in.

SSL certificates level of security between your website and the information visitors are sharing. They protect your website in two main ways:

Do I Need an SSL Certificate for my Vtiger CRM instance?

Short answer, Yes!

There is no reason why a sensitive data like the one store in the CRM could not be beneficiated by using an SSL on your server.

How to enable SSL on your vTiger CRM

Step 1: Get an SSL certificate, there are a lot of options out there. Even some of them free like let’s encrypt

Step 2: Edit config.inc.php to add https:// to your site URL

Step 3: Force everyone to be redirected to the https version of the app. To force that, you need to access your CRM folder in the server and create a new file called “.htaccess” At the top of the file, you need to include the following code: